Print Edition Vol. 21 - Wet Blood and Garnet Stones

Wet Blood and Garnet Stones

by Storm Humbert

Dedication: In memory of my grandfather, Bill Humbert,

whose afterglow inspired me to chase my own stars.

The waters of the Dassian Sound shimmered in the light of the Dancers – our twin stars – and rippled in the heat from the funeral pyre of Orra, mother of my mother. The Holy Hills of Io across the Sound were shrouded in morning fog. They seemed to be burning, smoking, just like my Orra. My whole world was going to ash, and I felt I ought to weep, but Kolraini tradition dictated stoicism and strength.

My father stood beside me on the platform – jaw firm, eyes forward and unstrained despite the smoke. His tail was in a strong, formal posture, the ball curled over above his head. His calm set him apart from me, and I felt alone. Had he been so composed at my mother’s final gathering, when I was just fresh born?

The rest of the village filled the kismay wood benches of the clearing behind us all the way to the edge of the skintree forest. How many had come only for my Orra and not for my father and me? How many thought him a traitor and me a traitor’s son? Would they push us away now without my Orra to hold us all together?

“Orra passes now, through fire and smoke, to the afterspace in the sparkling ceiling of creation!” Nomek shouted. “She has learned the rhythms of life and now courts a dance with Io!”

Nomek’s words echoed through the clearing as if they aimed to shake the twilight fronds from the pale branches of the skintrees. He was Eldest now that my Orra was gone, but he did not have her knack for speaking softly yet being heard by all.

“Somni unquily Orra hutyl anapati desidros,” we all chanted – together, if only for a moment. Those words marked the end of the speaking.

My father and I walked to the far edge of the platform and stood in the heat of the pyre. Even as the flames whittled away at the structure, it held its shape – half as wide as a dwelling but twice as tall and angled instead of round. There was no wind, so the smoke went straight into the air like a dark pillar holding up the sky. Somewhere in the base, Orra lay on a stone slab covered in oborro reeds and wrapped in skintree film. I could detect the smell of flames on flesh and a crackle that was just barely different than burning timbers alone. The warmth of the flames clung to my skin, but it did not penetrate.

I opened the ceremonial nelrimi worn around my neck and removed the Teckreet. It was black and flaky – more a powder than a moss – and felt like nothing in my hand. I had grown up with the Teckreet all around, back when it was alive. It had been the soft red carpet of our world that fed the soil to grow the bounty of sweet fruits and roots that made up most of our diet. All this I had known and now missed, but everything I knew of its magic, its purpose, was from Orra’s stories. I’d never seen live Teckreet used in a final gathering. I never would. It had been black and dead for six cycles now, ever since I’d been old enough to attend the ceremonies.

I tossed my shriveled handful into the fire. It filtered through the stacked timbers and disappeared into the inner compartment. Then I stepped back from the flames. There was no reason to watch. There would be no miracle. There had not been for six cycles, and there never would be again. The fire would eat the fire-eater. Io’s words from my Orra’s stories thundered in my head, Corpses do not conquer flames. Only life eats death.

My father did as I had done, then Nomek. Then the rest of the village began to wind up the stairs of the platform to make their ashy offerings as well. It was all for show, and I hated it. My Orra deserved the real thing.

I tried to focus on the durases down the beach, drinking from the Sound – their small, furry front legs submerged to the elbow. I listened to the violet-winged noika sing invisibly from the edges of the skintree forest, and I tried my hardest to be like my father – placid and reverent – not small, pretending, and afraid, afraid of so many things.

Some villagers, mostly classmates from the Gaian School and their families, bowed a formal chakti to my father and me as they filed past. Most others ignored us. Kimir, a former classmate from before the withdrawals, openly glared.

Nomek followed the last of the villagers, and my father left shortly after. I was Orra’s only living bloodkin so I remained at the shores of the Sound until the pyre burned itself out. I cried beside the blackened bones of the pyre timbers and asked Io to take my Orra’s tievie to the afterspace since the Teckreet could not.

***

Afterward, I walked quickly back to our dwelling. I arrived before dark – before the Gaian curfew and patrols – but the blue light already shone from under my father’s door. This meant he was working, talking with Gaian Consulate officials, so I went to my room, drew the curtain, and lay in bed.

Sometimes I wished my father wasn’t our ambassador. If my father weren’t the ambassador, he would not have woke while the village slept and slept while the village woke in order to keep time with Gaian officials in their far-off city, floating somewhere in our limitless ocean. If not for this, he would have had time to sit and talk with me about how I missed my Orra and feared she would never see the afterspace without living Teckreet to help her. And if he weren’t the ambassador, the villagers wouldn’t have accused him of conspiring with the Gaians to kill the Teckreett in order to get the school built. If not for all of this, it wouldn’t have taken all of Orra’s effort and influence as Eldest to keep me involved in village events – to keep my father and me from being cast out.

But if he weren’t the ambassador though, we also wouldn’t have had electric lights along our village paths or flowing water in our dwellings. We wouldn’t have had the Gaian School where my classmates and I (those few who remained) learned the incredible math, science, and history that the Gaians had to teach us – their knowledge of all creation and the secrets that brought them to us from the stars.

Even if my father weren’t the ambassador though, the blackness still would have killed the Teckreet. Secret villagers would have still burnt the fields of Gaian crops meant to feed us. The village would still be tearing itself apart over a lie. I wished they could know, as I knew, that it wasn’t true what they said about my father being a traitor – that the Gaians had done all they could to stop the blackness. I wished the rest of the village could be sad and scared about the Teckreet, as I was, but not need to hate and to blame as they did. I wished Orra was still here to show them how.

***

I woke the next day and went to the shores of the Sound. I had to arrive early to open the clearing for the second day of Orra’s passing because no others could enter before me.

I tried to be in good spirits – to let the noises of the morning forest calm me. Each sound reminded me of morning walks with my Orra when I was small – before the school. I remembered meeting her at the start of the path when there was still darkness in the sky and only the soft glow of the Dancers could be seen on the horizon – when the luminous pozak flowers still could not decide whether to shine or hide and could be picked glowing from the ground.

My Orra deserved the afterspace – a traditional passing with living Teckreet just like the ones from our stories she knew so well. It wasn’t fair.

If the Teckreet had been alive – if it had eaten the flames and covered the pyre the day before – we would touch the soft, red surface of the Teckreet-covered timbers and whisper parting wishes to her tievie that she may take to Io in the afterspace.

All that remained of my Orra’s pyre, however, was a haphazard tumble of blackened beams with a heavy stone slab somewhere in the rubble. This, the builders would cover with dirt before any visitors arrived. This had become the way since the Teckreet died. What would we whisper to such a thing, and who would hear it through the thick, packed ground?

Nomek stood with the builders and young apprentices at the edge of the clearing. They met me with formal chaktis and I returned the gesture. They then parted; I stepped beyond the threshold of the clearing and welcomed them inside. It had to be done just so. The builders filed past me and went straight to the platform, which they began to disassemble so that they could bury the pyre. Nomek stood beside me.

“How are you, youngling?” Nomek said.

I could feel him looking at me, but I did not want to look back, so I watched the builders. I also hated being called a youngling. I would be grown in one cycle.

The builders moved like dancers around the platform: the way they passed each other, ducked under beams, and worked in unison as they took down the supports. The apprentices seemed often in the way.

“I know my duties for today,” I said. “I am ready.”

“I expect you are, but that’s not what I meant.”

I turned toward him, but he no longer looked at me. His eyes focused over me, to the Holy Hills. There was no mist that morning.

“Your Orra told me of your worries,” he said. “I’d like to help if I could.”

I did not respond. I didn’t know which worries she’d shared – if she’d really shared at all. I didn’t know where Nomek stood when it came to my father and me. I was about to speak, but then a builder’s apprentice shouted. Fleeing footfalls were drowned out by the crack of timbers and the clatter of tumbling wood. I turned just in time to see what was left of the platform fall against my Orra’s withered pyre and cave in one side of the core compartment.

I ran toward the wreckage. Dust and ash stung my eyes, but that was not why they watered. It was all ruined. Everything was ruined. Any hope that this pitiful replacement ritual would take her tievie to the afterspace was gone. She would wander unfelt until she faded from creation. That was what the stories said.

When the dust cleared, I stood in the opening left by the fallen platform. The inside of the pyre seemed raw, and ash still swirled within the core as it swam past me into the open air. Light invaded the previously sealed space and spread like fire. The stone slab – the last place I’d seen my Orra – sat in the center, barely held off the ground by squat, stone blocks.

As the last of the ash settled, I noticed odd patches throughout the room – red patches – especially on the stone slab. At first, I felt I would be sick because I thought the red was Orra’s cooked body left from the pyre and scattered by the collapse, but then I saw it wasn’t. It seemed to cling to where she had been. It was what I knew it could not be – Teckreet – and it drew my eyes and held the shout in my throat. All I could do was look at it – try to make sense of its presence or trace its impossible pattern of shading that ranged from the color of wet blood to the garnet stones mined by the Gaians.

“Teckreet!” I yelled as soon as I regained my voice. “There is Teckreet inside!”

I continued yelling as I turned and ran from the opening. The builders and the apprentices looked at me as if I was mad, but then they came to the opening and saw it too. Most stood in silent awe. Only Nomek spoke, and this only after some time.

“Only Orra…” was all I heard. The words were not meant for the builders or me.

Nomek sent the builders to gather all of the villagers, even the hunters in the woods and the planters in the fields, and he said he would get my father himself. I was left alone with my Orra and her miracle.

It didn’t take long for villagers to start arriving. Tradition dictated that none approach or speak to me, but I could see the excitement in their movements and faces, hear it in their whispers. Many smiled at me as they craned their necks to get a glimpse inside the pyre chamber. I was, for those moments, a part of the village – the whole village – as I had not been for some time.

The quiet buzz of whispers almost stopped dead when Nomek entered with my father, but it was not they who quieted the whispers. It was the three Gaians behind them – the ones who wore walking suits. I had not seen a Gaian wear a walking suit in six cycles. The Teckreet spores had been the only thing that kept the Gaians from breathing our air, so they hadn’t needed them after it died.

My father spoke briefly to the Gaians at the edge of the clearing before he and Nomek entered. The Gaians remained just outside the threshold. I could feel the eyes of the villagers on me as much as they were the Gaians and my father – accusing, as if I’d known all along. The quiet filled the space between the villagers and me – pushed us apart again. Why did the Gaians come? This didn’t concern them.

“Who told them?” I said when my father got to me. “And why are they here?”

Nomek lagged a little behind, and I tried to speak so only my father could hear, but I saw the first row of villagers react. Maybe that was better. At least then somebody would know it wasn’t my fault.

“I had to tell them, Ozek,” my father said. “If there is Teckreet in the area, they need the suits.”

“But why did you bring them here?”

My father looked around as if he cared who was watching – as if he cared if I embarrassed him. The respect and acceptance of the villagers didn’t matter to him. It hadn’t for some time. It only mattered to me.

“They only asked to come in order to verify,” my father said. “They will not interfere.”

They have already interfered, I wanted to say, but I could never confront my father. I’d never even been able to ask him about the awful rumors when I’d first heard them. Thankfully, Nomek shuffled up and stood beside us. He beamed with the joy and wonder that only the elders could – the kind that was true because it had been measured against a lifetime of things.

“Are you ready to begin?” he said.

My father and I nodded and all three of us moved to take our places beside the wreckage of the shattered pyre. Nomek stepped forward and addressed the crowd.

“Today we have been permitted to see Io’s hand at work in the creation of all things.” Nomek said. “As one who has seen many days, I advise you mark your memory.” He gestured toward the pyre. “Believe me when I say that you will tell your younglings and second younglings this story. You will remember where you were when you heard the news and where you sit listening to me now. So please come forward and see what Io has returned to us through Orra and give thanks that she may take with her to the afterspace.”

Nomek was still louder than Orra, but I did not think she would have said anything better.

One by one, the villagers placed their hands and foreheads against the side of the broken pyre and whispered their thanks and best wishes. Everyone looked into the open center of the pyre as well. All were in awe of the Teckreet – that it was actually there – but the elders were especially affected. Many knelt on the shores of the Sound and drank the water in deep swallows as Kolran himself had done in the Story of Ascent after Io raised his daughters into the sky to dance the spirit of life across all creation and bring light to our days. The drinking was a sign of humbling before Io and a hope to take in some of the resonant power of the miracle.

As the line to offer whispers shortened, heads turned more frequently to the entrance of the clearing – to the Gaians. Hadn’t they verified yet? I hated that they still stood there. Some of the villagers who had already offered their wishes to the pyre stood around the entrance to the clearing as well, but there was a gap between them and the Gaians – a gulf.

I was the last to touch my head to the ashen walls of the pyre core. I whispered my wish of safe travels for my Orra and thanks that she carry on to Io. I took one last look inside at the stone slab and the beautiful patches of Teckreet – they seemed bigger than before – then walked toward the path back to the village.

The entrance to the clearing was clogged with villagers who flanked the three Gaians on either side of the path. Two wore suits of varying shades of black while one had a few accents of blue. Under the suits, the Gaians were many colors, shapes, and sizes. They weren’t much bigger than us, had only one thumb per hand, no tails, no claws, or really anything that seemed useful to defend themselves or attack others, but they looked indestructible in their suits. They always had. The suits weren’t bulky or metallic like some of their other equipment I’d seen on rare occasion, but there was a uniformity to them and an indescribable awkwardness to how the light played on the suits’ high-tech fiber – no reflection or glare, as if the light died on impact.

As I got close, I could hear many voices and see some jostling in the crowd. Nomek was trying to speak over everyone. What was going on?

“… it’s getting late, and we must go to our dwellings,” Nomek said to the villagers. “We will return in nine days to celebrate Orra’s ascent.”

“We will go when they go,” a voice said from the crowd, Kimir.

“Why are they here?” another said.

The chatter of the crowd rose to a din and then a roar. I looked around but did not see any of my classmates or their families – no allies. The crowd was mostly comprised of the families of sharp-eyed hunters and farmers with thick, heavy fingers that hung curled at their sides in perpetual tension – as if always squeezing something invisible. These were the people who missed the Teckreet most – whose place and position in the village disappeared as the soil went from deep, rich black to soft brown.

The two Gaians in black walking suits glanced around. I couldn’t tell how well they understood Kolraini – if at all. The center one – the one in the blue – stood still. She seemed to be listening. Her face was pale and calm under her transparent faceguard. I wondered what color her hair was. I’d been obsessed with Gaian hair since my first day at the school – the first day I’d seen them without their suits. There was nothing like it on Kolrain.

“We didn’t intend to disrupt your event,” she said. Her suit gave her voice an echoic crackle like the coming and going of a thunderclap. “Ambassador, please take us to gather a sample and we’ll be on our way.”

The crowd erupted. Kimir pushed her way to the front.

“These are the shores of the Dassian Sound,” she said. “In full view of the Island of Ascension – the place of first miracles. The sites of Io’s miracles are for the children of Kolran alone – for us. The Gaians cannot enter here.”

There was no question in her voice – no hesitation. These were facts. She knew she was right. I knew she was right. Everyone knew she was right. Why, then, was I nervous?

“The Consulate just wants to study this Teckreet,” my father said. “They can tell us why it lives and let us know if it is still in danger from the blackness that killed it before.”

“So they can kill it again, you mean?” Kimir said.

She stepped into the empty space between the crowd and the Gaians. The woman in the blue suit did not flinch, but the other two seemed nervous. I wondered if they had any weapons in those suits.

My father stepped forward too, his tail curled back and to the left, ball cocked and ready to whip – striking posture. “I think you’re one of those who burned the fields,” he said.

“You mean the fields of their foods?” Kimir said. “The ones they give us because we can’t grow enough of ours without the Teckreet? The Teckreet they killed! You are a fool if you do not see how badly they need us to need them!”

“Enough!” Nomek said. Even the blue-suited Gaian was startled by his shout. “Ozek is Orra’s bloodkin. He is the one who found the Teckreet inside. It is his decision.”

He looked around at everyone – Gaian and Kolraini alike. He took extra time to stare at Kimir and my father. Then they all looked at me.

I tried to stay calm – to seem in control.

“What is it you want?” I asked the blue-suited Gaian.  

“Just a small piece of the Teckreet moss,” she said. “No more than the palm of my hand.”

Ever since the Teckreet had begun dying six cycles ago, I’d always felt eyes on me – the village judging me, weighing me. At that moment, I didn’t need to feel it. I could see it. I saw my father’s gaze too. It was softer – expectant. He would never consider that I might say no. The possibility probably hadn’t even occurred to him.

“You cannot enter here,” I said.

The crowd cheered and smiled – some shouted my name. I felt so whole, so a part of things, in that moment that I almost didn’t finish my sentence. But my father would not meet my eyes. He looked not so much angry as broken – alone. I knew that feeling.

“But you can have your sample,” I said. “My father can gather it for you.”

The crowd quieted. None smiled. My father looked up and nodded. That was all? I felt cheated. Did he know what that had cost me? Did he care? The crowd did not move, but many looked to Kimir. They waited on her as if she were in charge.

“There is no need for samples,” Kimir said. “We can show you that the Teckreet is fully alive.” She stepped further into the empty zone between the crowd and the Gaians – one step, two steps, three – and the crowd surged with her like a wave around three rocks. I knew then how deep the divide in the village had become. I knew how many villagers had set fire to the fields weeks earlier. I knew how many hated the Gaians enough to make war – pointless war, futile war. It was more than I’d ever thought.

“Stop!” my father shouted. “Ozek has decided.”

None stopped. Nobody seemed to hear him at all except Kimir. She didn’t even turn or break stride as she responded.

“Ozek is wrong,” she said.

“No further!” Nomek said. “Respect Ozek’s wishes, or the village will be no place for any of you!”

This time I was glad he was so loud. His words must have fallen on them like a hammer. Now Kimir stopped and turned. They all did. Some even looked afraid.

“What is a village, Eldest one?” Kimir said. “The children of Kolran or their dwellings?” She smiled and flicked her tail as she turned back toward the pyre. “The village is with me – with us – you cannot take it.”

Nomek looked as if he’d been struck. His word was to be final in these matters – his authority absolute. He cast about as if the right response were written in the air. I wondered what Orra would have said – how Orra would have made them listen. I wanted her right then. I needed her to cast off the chaos and bring us all together as she always had, but she was gone and all that remained was the chaos. Nomek, lost, looked to my father.

My father turned to the Gaians. “Stop them,” he said.

“Ambassador, we can’t –”

“I hereby empower you to keep order, by force if necessary.”

“We’re just researchers,” the blue-suited woman said.

“Call the Consulate then! Get someone here!” My father swung his tail against the ground and the ball sunk halfway in. Soil clung to it when he yanked it free, from the thick middle all the way down to where the ball attached to the rest of the tail. He did not look at the Gaian woman. He just stared at the villagers on their way toward my Orra and her miracle.

The blue-suited woman nodded. Her lips moved behind the faceplate, but I could not hear the words.

“A team will be here in thirty minutes,” she said.

My father nodded and nobody said anything after that.

It didn’t take long to see what the villagers were doing and to know that it wouldn’t take thirty minutes. They took the pieces of the tumbled platform that had revealed my Orra’s miracle and arranged them around the outside of the broken pyre. They removed some of the Teckreet from inside before they covered the opening with big support timbers.

Some of the hunters covered the improvised pyre with zanim oil – they all carried it to start fires in the forests during long-ranging hunting trips. There was a small spark. Then, flames snaked along the unburnt platform pieces and spread to what was left of the old pyre. They branched like lightning until the burning paths swam together and all was in flames.

The pyre burned like this for minutes before Kimir’s voice shattered the quiet.

“Watch the fire-eater,” she said.

She faced her large semi-circle of followers, but I knew she spoke to the Gaians and me – and maybe even to herself. She had never seen it either, not like this. Her face was smooth and eyes wide. She stared at the pyre as if it were a wounded bagian bird she’d found and mended – as if now, the wing healed and supports removed, she hoped to see it fly. Almost without thinking, I stepped forward. I walked until I was just outside the crowd. I wanted to see.

The chunks of Teckreet, most about the size of my head, were tossed onto the flaming timbers. For a moment, I feared they were destroyed – that the Teckreet had never really been alive – but then deep black smoke began to rise from the spots and the fire started to recede. The Teckreet was growing.

The mottled red of the Teckreet seemed to shift as it spread. It filled its full range of colors and seemed to tremble as it covered the timbers – hesitant flesh ready to slough from the bone with the slightest breath of wind. After a time, the Teckreet sat so thick on the pyre that not even the black smoke escaped. The core of the pyre seemed encased now in a ribcage that rose and fell – for the Teckreet in such a mass did breathe – as the breath of Kolrain itself. I’d never seen anything so indomitably alive.

I turned to my father, Nomek, and the Gaians. I had to be smiling – smiling as I hadn’t for many cycles – but they weren’t looking at me. Their eyes were in the sky, transfixed. I turned. The thing I saw had to be a Gaian flying machine, but I’d never seen another like it.

The middle compartment of the machine was oblong and without edges – a long oval so smooth and clean that it seemed almost liquid. It gleamed black and the reflection of the scarlet Teckreet mound shone like a wound in its belly as it passed overhead. It had four spheres, two on each side, wreathed in white light tinged here and there with red. The light was somehow completely contained. It didn’t even reflect in the glossy surface. The ship made no noise and moved unnaturally through the air. It neither glided nor soared, as if on a wire or track. It moved straight down from the sky and settled just above the ground in a clear space away from the villagers and the Teckreet. It floated there, not quite touching the ground.

As the light around the spheres (or within, I could not tell for sure) dimmed to a soft blue, the back of the central compartment opened, and four Gaians quickly exited and formed a semi-circle around the hatch. Their feet sounded heavy as they beat quickly upon the ground of the clearing. It sounded as if the ground beat back against them – as if it were trying to throw them off. Their walking suits were different than the researchers’. I’d never seen suits like these.

Their faceplates were opaque and ever-changing like the rest of the suit. Each was faceless. The color changed continuously but not all at once; a finger, arm, shoulder, or knee that was dark green one second would be dark red or dark yellow the next. I couldn’t quite pin it down, and the colors flowed into each other so seamlessly that it was as if one color never really ended even though others certainly began. This effect made it hard to tell their limits – where they ended and where the air or ground began. They seemed perpetually in the act of growing and shrinking – of moving and standing. I’d never seen Gaians like these before. I was terrified.

“Please, return to your homes,” they said.

It was only one voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. It did not come and go like thunder as the blue-suited Gaian woman’s had but seemed to persist. It did so not in an echo but more in the shaking of the air. The waters rippled from the shore and I covered my ears.

Kimir stood at the front of the crowd. She did not shield her ears, and she did not back away. She did not seem afraid – did not seem capable of fear.

“You cannot be here!” she shouted. “You must go!”

“We will escort you to the village,” the everywhere voice said again. “Please comply.”

“Leave!” she shouted.

The Gaians moved forward. At first, the villagers stood still, some even stepped back, but when Kimir advanced on the Gaians, the villagers followed. I didn’t move. There was a spasm in the light within the spheres of the ship, and everything was a blur after that. The villagers fell down as if struck by an invisible wave. I fell too. I twitched on the ground as tides of heat crinkled over my skin while my insides froze. Silence echoed in my head as the sounds of wind and leaves and even my own body on the ground amounted to nothing in my ears. My vision speckled and flashed in many colors. I lost track of myself. After that, I couldn’t tell how much time passed. It would only come in flashes. I remembered crawling to my Orra’s pyre where I rested against the soft flesh of the Teckreet.

It was warm, almost hot, and softer than anything I could remember. I ran my hands across it as it heaved and breathed under my weight. The spores floated into the air and danced in the light. There was a hint of burning timbers in the spores. I could smell how hot they were. Hot enough to crack stone. They mostly smelled like my Orra though – like her clothes and her skin and the grain of her tail when she would stroke my neck. Had the Teckreet had a smell before? Could I have forgotten? No, not this; I could have never forgotten this. This was the magic from Orra’s stories – true stories. When I closed my eyes, I felt as if she was holding me, breathing against me.

I was whole and permanent – limitless. It was as if I was experiencing a sense I’d gone without my whole life – like seeing for the first time, but it was not just a hill or a friendly face I saw; it was everything. Then I felt hands on my shoulder and under my legs – Gaian hands, clothed in the unnatural fibers of a walking suit. I was lifted up and away from the Teckreet, away from my Orra. It was gone.

***

I did not remember waking, but the next thing I knew, my father sat in front of me. We were back in our dwelling, and the smells of Orra and clothes and skin and cracking stones were crowded out by the slight char of my father’s cooking. He fed me warm nellimfruit paste.

“The medic at the camp said it is a good sign you’re awake,” he said. His voice washed over me as if we were both under water – a touch as much as a sound. “Don’t be frightened, Ozek, they said it will take some time to recover. I’m going to talk though. Talking helps. They said you probably won’t remember, but talking helps.”

He spoke so quickly. The nervousness radiated from him. It made me happy, in a way, to see him so startled – so worried on my behalf. He never let me out of his sight. He even set up my cot in his room so that he would be able to see me while he worked.

I had no way to know how long it had been since the strange Gaians and the voice from everywhere; I could not even track the time that had passed since I first started waking again. But, after I had been coming and going for what seemed like some time, I found myself awake in my father’s room. It must have been late because he was talking with someone at the Gaian Consulate on his viewscreen.

“… we’ll open the school and academy to all Kolraini,” the voice on the screen said.

“And the flight school?” my father said.

“Kolraini students who do well enough in the academy will be accepted into flight school just like any of our own students.”

Flight school? I’d dreamed only of the academy since I first started at the Gaian School, but flight school had never been an option. To fly from star to star – from planet to planet and breathe the air of far-off places – this was beyond a dream. This was impossible. Only the Gaians did this.

“If those are the terms,” my father said, “then I would say we have an agreement.”

“All contingent upon the removal of the Teckreet moss, of course,” the voice said. “And a verification period to make sure it is all really gone this time.”

“Of course,” my father said.

This time? All I could do was focus straight ahead – try to figure out the logic behind the grain pattern of the wooden door. Whatever this feeling was, it seemed to break like a wave over my body and wind beneath my skin. Remove the Teckreet? Why? Had Kimir been right? Had everyone been right but me?

“Consul Lin,” my father said. “Please, let me say how happy I am. This has always been my dream for my people. I never thought I’d see it completed in my lifetime. I know this is abnormal – unprofessional – but I had to tell somebody. Thank you, Consul.”

I hadn’t heard my father so sincerely happy in a long time, maybe not since the school first opened, during the brief period before the Teckreet died when he was a hero in the village for the school, lights, and water. He used to walk every morning after he’d worked all night just to smile and laugh with the villagers who all smiled and laughed back. But now this? This made him happy?

“I am glad, Ambassador,” Consul Lin said. “You are a true visionary. One who, I fear, may not be truly appreciated by your village in your own time. They are lucky to have you.”

I wanted to bolt from my cot and scream in his face. I wanted to call him vakiro as I’d been called the first time he’d traded them the Teckreet – when I’d unknowingly defended him like a fool. How could he trade our stories and magic and link to the afterspace, to everything? I’d felt the Teckreet, the real Teckreet, before the Gaians in strange suits who spoke from everywhere. I knew what whole was. He would not take it.

Consul Lin signed off shortly after that, but my father worked at his station awhile longer. He didn’t talk to anyone, but I could hear the patter and click of his hands on the controls. Eventually, he turned the screen off, but he did not go to his cot. Instead, he stood over me in the darkness. I focused on maintaining my false sleep.

“I know you will not hear this,” he whispered. “Let alone remember, but I am happier now than I have ever been. My youngling, you will fly through creation one day. You will walk the ground of another world, maybe many. You will lead our people to the stars. We do not need to wait for death.”

No, I wanted to say. Traitor, vakiro, housdep, I wanted to stay. I wanted to stand up right then – stand up straight and proud so my eyes were even with his – and tell him he was not my father. I wanted to tell him that he had no youngling, that he was alone. I wanted many things, but what did I have if not my father? If he was alone, what did that make me? All I knew was that I wanted Orra most of all, but a part of me, a part I tried to ignore, badly wanted the stars. So, I stayed still and focused on breathing in the rhythms of sleep.

After a moment, he went to his cot and lay down. He quickly fell to sleep. When I was sure his sleep was deep enough, I snuck from his room and into my own. I grabbed the oborro reed shoulder pouch Orra had woven for me and left the dwelling.

I had not been out in the night since the curfew had gone into effect after the fields were burned. I had forgotten the brilliance of it. Creation was truly a marvel at night – as if it contained colors that could only be detected by the skin rather than the eyes. The stars were like the light in the eyes of a friend – the twinkle in the boundless depths that tells that there is life there, that there is more there than can ever be known. The only thing to contest the sheer blackness of the Dancerless sky was the wan glow of the pozak petals. They were like stars grown from the ground. They closed during the day because they were sensitive to light, but at night they opened and used the energy they’d gathered to illuminate the forests.

With the pozak light came the bagian birds. Their calls were soft but stout and somehow harsh. I’d only ever seen them in the light of the pozak petals from which they fed on sweet-smelling nectar so I couldn’t help but imagine them a soft blue even though they were probably brown or black.

I did not walk the electrically illuminated paths through the village because I could not risk being seen. Instead, I walked around the edge, in the first few rows of skintrees. Every patter of tiny animal feet on the soft ground, or rustle in the smattering of leaves between me and the night sky, made me jump. I looked constantly at the sky, at the stars, whenever I stopped to listen for following feet. For all of my caution, I moved quickly. My feet would have known the way even without the pozak. Kolrain was my home, and the village was my ground. I was a part of it.

When I got to the clearing, I could still make out the edge of the water. The pozak was so thick on the wet ground around the shore that the water seemed frozen in the soft blue light. The stars shone in the deeper waters of the Sound as if on a piece of glass – the ceiling of creation perfectly reflected in the floor. It made me wonder where my small part of the middle existed in all of that – in the crush of creation doubled back on itself.

I crouched down amongst the kismay wood benches and made my way down the aisle to the red, heaving, wonderful Teckreet with my oborro reed pouch in my hand. I just had to gather a little, then I could spread it everywhere. I could plant it in small patches in the dark, secret places of the forests so that by the time it was discovered, it would be too late. My Orra would be everywhere, and I could be with her always.

When it breathed, the Teckreet swelled more than it had before, and there was a growth on the top. It was a sort of cone with the top flayed open, and it released puffs of red mist – spores – whenever the mound of Teckreet contracted. It had to be the teckmaet, the growth the Teckreet made before it bloomed. But how could it be? Could it have been nine days? Had it been so long, or was this mound blooming early? Was this Teckreet faster than the old, stronger? It didn’t matter. I was lucky to be there to see it.

I put down my pouch and sat at the side of the Teckreet as it filled the air with smells of my Orra. It was as if she was the air and held me on all sides. The pace of the Teckreet’s breathing seemed to quicken and the expansion and contraction of the mass became so violent that I feared the whole thing would collapse. Then it did.

A spout of red spores, as fine as misty rain but not as wet, errupted from the teckmaet into the night sky. It spread like a wave breaking in all directions. It covered me and the ground around me – covered it as far as I could see and still hung thick in the air. It drifted down the shore and coated the pozak flowers as well. The blue light that had previously frozen the water against the shore was now tinged red and made the Sound seem like a giant pool of blood – the blood of Kolrain itself.

The mound deflated as the spores were expelled from the top. The bottom edges crawled out across the ground as if the Teckreet hid beneath it innumerable tiny feet – as if there had not been stacks of mighty timbers under it just days earlier. I sprang back in order to get out of the way lest it envelope me. When the Teckreet settled, the air was so dense with spores that I had to close my eyes. When I opened them, I stared into the night sky, no longer blocked by the mass of Teckreet, as it grew clearer and clearer through the murk. That was it. That was my Orra’s ascent. She was gone.

The Teckreet didn’t heave with breath anymore, but it still felt alive, as if it could be no other way. It seemed to vibrate beneath my feet and knees as if compelling me to dance. I did not dance though. Instead, I crawled upon the crimson and scarlet carpet of my world – the now-flattened mound – and lay on my back to look at the night sky.

The smells and touch of my Orra dissipated as the red mist drifted away on the night breeze. I felt at ease, alone and at ease. She was in the wind and the trees and the water. She was everywhere so much that she was nowhere. I could no longer take her with me and missed her more than I ever had. I looked at the stars as I lay upon my Orra’s spent miracle and saw the night sky through what must have been my father’s eyes. How many of those stars had the Gaians visited? How much of creation had they mapped and conquered? I was beset by a terrifying smallness before the spin and crush of creation, but there was a limitlessness as well – in me as much as the stars.

I ran my hand across the soft, scarlet surface. The spores leapt into the air, curled and twisted like synchronized dancers, and I breathed them in. They were damp, like the scent of kismay timbers after a hard rain, and crisp, but I was surprised to find a remnant warmth. It was not of the body, not of my Orra, but of fire. It made me think of the burning timbers and the unseen cracking stone. The smells of Orra were gone. Orra was gone.

For a long time after, I stared into the night sky and wondered where, in all of it, she might be – if it were possible for me to find her. The only thing I knew for sure, the only thing in all creation, was that she was not there in the Teckreet beside the waters of the Dassian Sound. I thought of my father’s words, we do not need to wait for death, and the part of me that wanted my Orra began to listen to the part of me that wanted the stars.

When I left the shores of the Dassian Sound, my oborro reed pouch was empty.

END